Garbage That GOO!

Delayed Valentine’s delight

As hubby was sick for Valentine's Day, we opted to just schedule when he was feeling better. We planned it for Friday, which worked well for me, as if I'm gonna have extra calories, I'd rather it be on a workout day!

I ended up getting my hair cut Friday afternoon, so I felt a lot better about not going "shaggy" to the restaurant. Who knows, maybe now I'll get around to taking some long delayed photos.

We dined early, at Raphael's Restaurant. I have to say, while we can't afford to do this often, it really is fun every once in a while. And better to spend the money on delicious real food, than on junk food that never could taste so good! Besides, since our beloved Thai restaurant closed in December, we have not been going out so much.

As it was a planned 10% meal, my only concession to calories was to opt not to have a drink or wine with dinner. I figured I could do without the empty calories, I'm not that much of a drinker anyway. Otherwise, I planned to eat whatever I wanted from the menu with no apology and no regrets.

We started with a fresh Dungeness crab appetizer, basically a lovely mound of perfectly cooked crab meat, with a little decorative wasabi and cocktail sauce on the side. Oh my! Well, I could've just eaten a few more of this appetizer and been happy! I hadn't had crab in a long time, so a true treat!

That set us up nicely for our soup, a small cup of fresh corn chowder. That and two small slices of sourdough bread with a little butter were very good on a chilly night!

Then there was dinner. We kept on going with the crab... pan fried Dungeness crab legs. Sheer heaven. Served with a little broccoli rabe and a nice rice pilaf. Perhaps not so good for the waistline, I could taste the lovely butter and garlic the lightly floured crab had been fried in. Served with a lovely fresh made tomato cocktail sauce. I'm afraid that when our waitress asked if we wanted more bread, the answer was "Yes, please!" But without bread, how could we get every last scrap off our plates?

I usually have the huckleberry crème brulee for dessert, but I decided to try something different and I had a craving for chocolate. So I went for a no-flour chocolate souffle served with crushed hazelnuts and ice cream drizzled with Ghiradelli caramel sauce. WORTH EVERY BITE! Thank goodness Raphael's believes in small dessert portions!

A truly lovely dinner. We had so much fun! And as we'd eaten relatively early, we also caught a movie when we got home, a fun little British film "The Full Monty". I'd seen it once, but George hadn't and had always wanted to. Too cool it was on TV, starting minutes after we arrived home. So we had a very nice snuggly night. I skipped my last meal.